Pre-Summer Hellos and Goodbyes

I woke up past noon the next day, still feeling exhausted from the long day before. Thank goodness it was a Sunday with no school and no plans.

I walked into the kitchen to find Shun doing some accounting stuff for the cafe.

"Good morning, or rather good afternoon," he teased as I went to the fridge. "How was the school festival?"

I told him about some of the highlights as I made myself some eggs and toast, leaving out of course the whole incident with Matsudaira getting beat up and what had happened with Uchi afterwards.

"Oh, I got those yesterday," I said pointing to the vase on the counter with the white flowers. "Sorry I borrowed the vase without asking. I couldn't find you last night. Where were you?"

"Hmm? Oh, I had to go out and take care of something," Shun said vaguely.

"Is everything okay?" I asked worriedly. Was there trouble with another group?

"Yeah, it's fine," he said. "These are nice flowers."

I was a little worried how quickly he changed the subject, but I knew Shun wouldn't tell me anything he didn't want to.

"I thought you'd like them," I said. He always had some sort of flower arrangement up in the cafe, usually with white flowers. The guys had teased him about it once, but the glare he gave them made shut up about it immediately.

"We have to thank Tatsu-san and Akagi-san for helping us. I wonder what hosts would appreciate as gifts," I said. When Shun didn't respond, I looked up from my food at him.

Shun was looking at me as if thinking about something. "Hey Kana, I want you to go with Sho to the beach house this summer," he said finally.

"For the whole summer? What about the cafe?" I asked. Last year, I had spent half the summer at the beach house, half of it working at the cafe.

"Chiba's working the cafe now, and a couple of the other guys too," Shun said. "We should be okay."

"...I don't mind, but...is there a reason?"

"No. We just thought it might be best," Shun said, being vague again. It just reminded me of how Sho had been acting last night.

"Did something happen with Sho?" I asked.

"Why do you ask that?" Shun said, narrowing his eyes at me.

"...you're both acting like you're hiding things," I said hesitantly.

"It's nothing like that," Shun insisted. "We just think you've been working so hard at school. You should get out of the city a little bit. You still have two more terms to go, after all."

"...you're not going to make me study for university exams?"

Shun raised a brow at me. "Did you want to go to university?"

I shook my head. "I haven't thought about it much, but probably not."

Shun reached over and put a hand on my shoulder. "I only pushed you this hard because I knew you'd regret it if you didn't at least graduate from high school. And you wanted to. If you want to go to university, I'll support you...if you have something else you want to do, that's fine too."

"...what if I just stay and work at the cafe?" I mumbled.

Shun smiled. "If that's what you want to do. But I'd probably end up making you take management classes so you can take over for me some day."

I scrunched up my nose. Management classes sounded like a pain in the ass with all that math.

Shun laughed. "Just think about it, kid. But for this summer, head out to Shonan with Sho. He's already worked it out with his boss."

I nodded. The restaurant that Sho worked at had another location in Shonan by the beach, and every summer, they set up a beach house to sell more casual Japanese dishes to the hundreds of beachgoers that came every day. A couple members from the Ikebukuro location would go down for the summer to help man the beach house and Sho had been going for the past few years. I had gone to visit him two summers ago and the manager had liked me and offered me a job. I only worked a little bit that year but the next summer, I had spent half of my summer with Sho working at the beach house. It was a lot of work, and a lot more interaction with customers than I expected and was comfortable with at first, but with the help of Sho and the others workers, it was something I slowly got used to.

"Is your hand okay?" I asked, noticing the bandage for the first time when Shun's sleeve pulled up slightly. He pulled down his sleeve quickly, covering it again but smiled at me.

"Yeah, I was being clumsy and cut my hand when I broke a plate yesterday."

"...that never happens."

"Right? I was pretty startled myself," Shun laughed.

I shrugged and walked away. I guess he was fine if he could laugh about it.

I ended up doing the chores I was neglecting during the school festival prep like laundry before heading to the cafe to help out a little. It wasn't like I had a whole lot to do anyway.

Chiba was there but he was making coffee and I was taking orders so besides telling him the orders, we didn't have to interact much.

Kojima was there too. He was someone who had moved out of the house shortly after I moved in, so I didn't know him too well but he seemed close to Chiba so I saw him around sometimes. I didn't know that he was working at the cafe now, but I figured it was one of the people Shun had mentioned would be working here from now on.

"Hey," he said to me when he caught me in the corner of the cafe kitchen grabbing fruits from the fridge to make a smoothie. "Is it true you have a tattoo on your leg? Can I see it?"

"What the hell?" I asked as he smirked. I shot Chiba a look through the order window but he was ignoring us.

"So can I?" Kojima asked reaching out as if to push aside my apron.

"What are you guys doing?" a voice boomed behind us.

"Massan, you're back!" I said in surprise. Kojima took a step back as Massan put a hand on my shoulder.

"Long time no see," he said with a smile. "Yup, I'm back."

"For a long time?" I asked hopefully. Massan was worked at a ski resort in Hokkaido so he had been gone for all of winter and then a few extra months because the resort needed extra hands at the hot springs area even after the ski resort had closed.

"For a good while," he promised. "Shun asked me to help out at the cafe while I'm looking for work down here. Is Kojima bothering you?"

Kojima began to protest. "Massan, I would never…"

Massan glared at him, making him shut up. I forgot how scary Massan could be, but of course he was. Massan towered over all of his, even Shun.

"He was just teasing," I said lightly, giving Kojima a look. "Right?"

Kojima nodded and Massan sighed.

"Alright, get back to work then." Kojima immediately rushed out of the kitchen area.

Massan turned to me. "Kana, are you free for dinner tonight?"

I nodded. "Of course."

"There's...a lot I want to talk to you about. And of course I want to hear all about your school life! I heard you just did a host club!"

I groaned. Shun must have told him.

"Tonight at Hiro's?" he suggested and I nodded.

I finished up the shift with no more problems - Kojima wouldn't even look me in the eye. Weekends were always a little busier, so we had people actually stay until closing.

Shun came to help clean up and told me that Massan was waiting and let me leave. I took off my apron, washed up and brushed my hair before heading out.

Hiro's was only a few blocks from the cafe. Hiro, the owner and main chef, used to live in the house until recently. He had saved up enough to start his own small diner a year ago but continued to live in the house until the diner really took off. His food was incredibly good and I missed getting to taste his creations that he had practiced in the house kitchen. But Hiro's was a go-to when we didn't feel like cooking and we wanted to have something more substantial than ramen or yakitori, popular fast-food in our area.

The heavenly smell of Hiro's specialty demiglace sauce drifted towards me as I got closer.

Massan was waiting for me inside and I waved at Hiro through the kitchen window before taking a seat.

"What did you want to talk about?" I asked after we gave the server our orders, hamburg steak and a beer for Massan and hayashi rice for me.

"Wow, you don't waste time, do you," Massan laughed. "Well...I met someone in Hokkaido."

My eyes widened. "Is that why you're back?"

He nodded. "She was visiting the ski resort and got injured on the course, so I helped her down to the bottom and we ended up talking…she's originally from Hokkaido but works in Tokyo now so..."

"Wow," I said. I knew Massan was a huge softie inside so I was incredibly happy for him. Massan was one of the rare people in the group older than Shun. I had heard in the past that Massan had lost everything due to his gambling addiction and Shun took him in and gave him a job. He was fiercely loyal to Shun, but Shun had recognized that his gambling had been spurred by boredom in his own life and Massan needed to go after something more stimulating in his life. So Shun found him an opportunity to work at a ski resort in a new place, which would be hard work, but wouldn't give him time to gamble anymore. And apparently he found romance!

"What does she call you?"

"Hmm? ...Masa-san."

I couldn't help but grin. The guys had shortened Masa-san to Massan quite quickly because it was easier to say so it was funny to hear that someone actually called him Masa-san now.

I grilled Massan for more details about this mystery girl and their relationship, so much that by the time our food arrived, Massan was bright red and wouldn't look at me and began to order more beer.

Hiro slid into the booth next to me after the last order, claiming that he was now on a break. We ended up teasing Massan together and reminiscing about old times of living together in the house. They asked me questions about school and the school festival and my classmates.

"You're not dating anyone, are you?" Hiro asked, causing Massan to choke on his food and wash it down with his third beer. He was starting to get a little pink in the face from the beer.

"No!" I said, shaking my head.

"Yeah, thought so," Hiro said. "Shun wouldn't leave it alone if you were."

"But if you found someone...you could tell us, you know," Massan said. "We wouldn't tell him."

Hiro nodded. I appreciated the sentiment but talking about my currently nonexistent love-life was not a conversation I imagined having with the men I had come to see as my brothers.

"Can we not talk about this?" I said. "Not that there's anything to tell."

"Yeah maybe we should stop. Massan might cry if Kana was in love," Hiro teased.

"Because Kana has grown up so much since she started living with us," Massan said and his voice trailed off at the end.

"Are you crying?!" I asked, standing up. Once Massan got going, it was hard for him to stop, especially when he was drunk. "Ahh please don't do this now!"

"It's fine. You can leave him here. I'll take him home after I close up," Hiro said as Massan buried his face in Hiro's shoulder.

The next day passed quickly and before I knew it, it was Tuesday, the final day of the first term.

All we had for the day was closing ceremony and get our grades.

"Kana, you should have come with us yesterday," Minami grumbled. They had gone to the movies then an arcade and then bowling before getting kicked out for being too rowdy, apparently.

I shrugged. Sometimes the whole Tochigi thing was super useful for getting out of plans.

"Was it fun?" I asked.

"Yeah, Ami brought her friends," Noda said excitedly. "I mean...not that I cheated on Shizuka-chan or anything. She's still number one in my heart."

I rolled my eyes. I doubted Fujiyama even cared but I wasn't going to tell Noda that.

"Yeah and one of them REALLY liked Uchi," Minami chimed in.

I glanced at Uchi who hadn't looked at me once since I had arrived in the classroom. "It wasn't like that," he growled, swatting at Minami.

"But Uchi was in a bad mood the whole time just like now," Kuma said. "So she gave up."

"I see," I said as lightly as I could, and Uchi finally looked at me. I looked away first. Why were things so weird?

Sawada walked in just before the bell as usual.

"Hey, are you going to tell us about what happened with Matsudaira?" I asked quietly to him. He leaned over and said he'd tell me later.

Yankumi walked in at that moment so I sat back in my chair.

"You guys made it to the end of first term. Just be good during the closing ceremony and then you'll get your grades," she said with a smile.

Sawatari was thrown off by us actually being on time and quiet for the closing ceremony. Sure we couldn't really bother to stand in a straight line and most of us were looking at the floor or each other or anywhere else but the speakers on the stage, but it was definitely drastically different than when I had first arrived.

We trudged back to the room.

Yankumi gave out our grades and asked us to check to see who needed to take supplementary lessons. It turned out to be pretty much everyone in the grade. I almost teared up in relief when I saw I had barely made the cut. I was pretty sure I needed supplementary lessons for science and Japanese literature but Oyama was nice to me just because I was a girl and I'm pretty sure Washio also fudged my grades because he didn't want to fail me because that would look bad for the school and Saruwatari.

Sawada pulled me aside as the rest of the class surrounded Yankumi, complaining how supplementary lessons would ruin their summer plans. Of course, Sawada had amazing grades so he didn't have to.

"Hey, so the Matsudaira thing," he began. "When I got there, Matsudaira was getting beat up by Daigin guys because the leader wanted Matsudaira's girl and he thought Matsudaira stole her. It turns out she doesn't want anything to do with the leader, so he was just taking it out on Matsudaira."

"And?"

"Yankumi came and took care of everything like she does," he said. "She actually came wearing that mask she used when she got those Ara High thugs to leave the first years alone at the school festival."

"Did the Daigin guys survive?" I asked with a smirk.

"Barely," Sawada retorted. "Matsudaira was out cold too so he didn't see what she did. But the Daigin guys tried to put up a good fight but abandoned their leader the moment Yankumi knocked him on his ass."

"I wish I could have seen that," I laughed.

Sawada punched me lightly in the arm. "You did good with the host club."

I punched him back and he glared at me as I grinned.

"What are you guys talking about?" Noda asked and we both looked up, not realizing that they had come back.

"Nothing," I said. "Are you guys going to take summer classes?"

"Yeah, ruins everything," Kuma groaned.

"We had all these plans to go on trips and stuff this summer," Minami said. "Kana, you can come down and join us sometimes right?"

"Ah...about that…I'll be gone to visit my other grandparents…"

"All summer?!" Noda exclaimed.

I nodded.

"Where are you going to be? Maybe we can come visit you!" Minami insisted.

"Ah...Kagoshima...and then a trip to Okinawa?" I said for good measure. There was no way they'd follow me there, right?

"...I've been meaning to ask," Minami said suddenly and I braced myself for him to point out that it was obvious I was lying, or worse, ask about my parents. "But are your grandparents rich?"

"...kind of?" I said, letting out a sigh of relief.

"Oh. Nice," he said.

A weird silence fell on the group. I forgot that money was a weird topic. I wasn't sure of all of their financial backgrounds but I knew that a lot of people in the class were not super well off but doing okay but some families were struggling. I hoped they wouldn't see me differently because of it but I couldn't think of what to say. I don't get the benefits of them being well-off? But then I'd have to explain my current situation…

"Our last summer as students and it's going to be just staying local for most of it," Minami grumbled.

"You can hang out with the girls you met?" I suggested.

"Oh YEAH!" Minami shouted, and he, Noda and Kuma began to plan excitedly as I rolled my eyes.

"You won't be around all summer?" Uchi quietly asked me. I shook my head.

"Maybe at this rate, you'll all have girlfriends when I get back," I teased, trying to lighten the mood. But Uchi abruptly stood up instead, saying he had to go to the restroom. I suddenly remembered the thing about the flowers and cringed. Clearly I had said something to make things worse.

"Kagoshima and Okinawa, huh?" Sawada said in his usual monotone way. But when I looked at him, his eyes seem to pierce through me and I looked away. As usual, Sawada seemed to know that I was lying...and wanted me to stop. But I didn't know how.

I said my goodbyes to the group at the school gate, saying I had something important I needed to do with my grandparents. This wasn't a lie, and the guys must have understood that I was being quite serious. They told me they'd text - well Minami and Noda did - and wished me a good summer. I couldn't believe that in three short months, I had grown so fond of them.

Half an hour later, I sat in Nomura-san's bookstore, staring at the report card in my hand and my phone. Nomura-san had made me tea and I looked at him gratefully. I always made these phone calls from the bookstore because I was too embarrassed to do it from home.

I rang one of the few numbers in my contacts list.

"Hello?"

"Hello. It's Kana."

There was a short silence on the other end before they spoke again. "It's good to hear from you, Kana-chan. Are you doing well? How's your health?"

I swallowed hard. "I'm doing fine, grandma."

"I was just thinking about you. It's about the end of your first term, right?"

"...yes. It just ended today. I just wanted to tell you that I passed all of my classes."

"That's great, Kana-chan. I'll be sure to tell your grandfather."

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. The last time I had seen my grandfather, he had been shouting at me to get out of his house, throwing my shoes at me.

There was another long pause before she spoke again. "Is the money I've been sending you enough? Do you need more?"

I shook my head even though she couldn't see. "It's enough, grandma, really…thank you."

Despite me getting kicked out, my grandparents were generously paying for my tuition at Shirokin, and my grandmother had been sending me spending money despite me telling her that I was working for my rent and boarding.

"As long as you're doing well," she said. "I worry about you, you know. And I know it might be hard to believe, but your grandfather does too. We would be happy if you came up for the summer…"

I shook my head again. "I...I have to work this summer."

I could imagine the disappointed look on her face. "I see. Maybe in the fall then."

"...Maybe."

And with that, summer began.

Author's Note: I seem to always be apologizing for things not turning out the way I promised haha...once I began to write about what happened after the Host Club, the ideas kept coming but then work just got in the way. So the next bit will have a little about summer vacation in the beginning, where Kana spends a lot of time with Sho and not in Kagoshima and Okinawa, but after that, it's back to the scheduled program with Sports Day! Thank you for your kind encouraging words and comments! As usual, I really appreciate hearing your thoughts!